Fighting entropy

Should we accept the world's chaos or choose to thrive in it?

I often find myself loving the days of rain. There’s just something so enticing about the chaos. My vision becomes speckled with water droplets over my glasses, my hair wet and shoes drenched. Yet, there is no despair, just the feeling of a dream I don’t want to end.

I think rain is the universe’s reminder of its control over chaos. It’s one of the few chaotic moments I enjoy. When it stops, I go back to trying to order every aspect of life, fighting the rising entropy of the world.

The constant fever to contain every aspect of life like it’s a single firefly. Yet, when I stop and look around, I realize that my tiny jar was never meant to hold the whole night, the entire night sky filled with fireflies. The more I try to trap them, the dimmer they become, because a jar can never compete with a horizon full of living light. There’s always more to be captured but too many to dampen the glow in the night’s air.

What I don’t yet understand is whether to keep catching the fireflies. Is all chaos beautiful, or is there some we must conquer? Maybe the act of catching is the problem - control turns beauty into inventory. Maybe there’s more beauty in the night sky than there is in my little glass jar. Maybe I would create more beauty by releasing the captive fireflies and taking in the view.

I’m not sure what the right answer is. But I do know that I spend too much time trying to control the chaos rather than embracing it, riding it. Entropy is an undefeated force. It has been since the birth of the universe.

The culture we incubate in tells us to seek control. That the more fireflies we catch, the more control we have. We place our jars next to our peers to see whose shines the brightest, ignoring the beauty of the world around us.

How should we approach the chaos of life? Should we keep trying to order it or decide to thrive in it? Do we let the rain fall and accept that we’ll get wet? Maybe we should enjoy chaos like we do the rain. Maybe we should seek out the rain. Sprint towards it the way light fills a dark room when we flip a switch. Flip the switch of life and realize that the best way to live is to love the chaotic mess rather than worry about the lack of control.

Science says that humans can’t travel at the speed of light, that only photons alone get the opportunity to race across the universe and see it whole. Still, there’s a kind of lightness available to us. When we stop gripping the world with closed fists, stop stuffing every firefly into a jar, we move differently. We move faster, clearer, as if unburdened by the need to control every flicker around us. And in that loosened state the world opens. Paths appear. People appear. The hidden corners of life that were once dim suddenly glow. A jar, no matter how brightly filled, only lights a few steps. The sky, left untouched, lights the entire night.